Like the dengue and Zika viruses, Oropouche virus causes a febrile illness. There are recent indications that infections during pregnancy can cause damage to unborn babies. Researchers have now determined that the virus is much more widespread in Latin America than previously assumed. Their study also suggests that climatic conditions have a significant influence on the virus's spread.

New DNA probes allow for efficient surveying of the hidden lives of squids and octopuses in the deep sea. This development provides an effective tool for marine ecological research and conservation efforts.

A new study has revealed that a special group of cells in the intestines tamp down the immune responses caused by exposure to food proteins. Called 'tolerogenic dendritic cells,' these cells enable food to pass through the body without triggering an immune reaction, unless they malfunction to cause allergies.

Deep sea mining operations are expected to increase the negative impact on environmental indicators by up to 13 per cent, a change categorized as having 'great' significance, relative to the 'without' DSM scenario, notably through increased coastal vulnerability, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

Engineers have created a sophisticated computer model that tracks how water moves in estuaries -- which is critical for evaluating climate variability and sea level fluctuation impacts for coastal communities.

Every year, thousands of tons of brown algae are extracted from the seabed to obtain compounds such as alginates, a polymer composed of sugars that has high density and strength, offering potential biotechnological applications. An international team has deciphered the mechanism by which a type of enzyme, called alginate lyase (AL), is capable of degrading these marine biomaterials, allowing them to be used as carriers of drugs, additives or thickeners, among others. These results will help in the development and design of new 'tailored alginates' for specific applications, especially in the food and biomedical industries.

Virginia Tech researchers seek to understand the environmental factors that influence the distribution of hantavirus in rodent populations across the United States.

For the highly populated coastal country of Bangladesh, once-in-a-century storm tides could strike every 10 years -- or more often -- by the end of the century, scientists report.

The United Nations organization responsible for international marine shipping today approved new emission reduction policies. A new paper highlights the need. Researchers surveyed 149 marine shipping experts in 2021 and found they expect the sector to see a reduction of 30 to 40 per cent in the carbon intensity of shipping -- a measure of the amount of CO2 emitted to ship cargo over a given distance -- by 2030 compared with 2008 levels. But they expect the sector won't meet its net-zero goal for 2050, instead achieving about 40 to 75 per cent reductions from 2008 levels.

A team presents new details of an oceanic transform fault at the Gofar fault in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The work reveals unexpected brine deposits beneath the seafloor near the fault, which could change the way we conceptualize oceanic transform faults.

O'ahu's sandy beaches are at risk. New research has determined that 81% of O'ahu's coastline could experience erosion by 2100, with 40% of this loss happening by 2030. Importantly, these forecasts of shoreline erosion are more extreme than previous studies indicated for O?ahu.

Earth's rocky layers are mysteriously low in nitrogen compared with carbon and argon. A scientific team explored our planet's molten youth using advanced quantum mechanical simulations, revealing nitrogen's secret: under extreme pressure, it chose to hide in the iron core 100 times more than the mantle. This solved why Earth's volatile ratios involving nitrogen look odd. The findings suggest the necessary ingredients for developing a habitable world may have been settled in the early Earth.

A novel paper is widening understanding of how species interact within ecosystems via the so-called 'Internet of Nature.' The paper reveals that species not only exchange matter and energy but also share vital information that influences behavior, interactions, and ecosystem dynamics -- revealing previously hidden characteristics of natural ecosystems.

Engineers have made bacteria to produce hyperspectral signals that can be detected as far as 90 meters away. Their work could lead to the development of bacterial sensors for agricultural and other applications, which could be monitored by drones or satellites to monitor crop health, for example.

Scientists have developed a scalable method to produce porous graphene membranes that efficiently separate carbon dioxide. The breakthrough could significantly reduce the cost and footprint of carbon capture technology.

Virology researchers have found that a specific protein modification to the immune protein MDA5 is key to how our bodies detect and respond to viruses and viral replication. The publication explains how two protein modifications activate MDA5, an essential immune protein, to sense invaders, limit viral replication and fight infections. This process is key to preventing outcomes like virus-induced heart inflammation.

Scientists have transformed RNA, a biological molecule present in all living cells, into a biosensor that can detect tiny chemicals relevant to human health. Research by scientists centers on RNA, a nucleic acid that plays a crucial role in most cellular processes. Their work is expected to have applications in the surveillance of environmental chemicals and, ultimately, the diagnosis of critical diseases including neurological and cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Study reveals commonly detected environmental levels of clobazam -- a medication often prescribed for sleep disorders -- increased the river-to-sea migration success of juvenile salmon in the wild. The research team employed slow-release pharmaceutical implants and animal-tracking transmitters to monitor how exposure to clobazam and the opioid painkiller tramadol -- another common pharmaceutical pollutant -- affected the behaviour and migration of juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in Sweden's River Dal as they migrated to the Baltic Sea.

Researchers had been studying the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii for decades without seeing evidence of an active virus within it -- until researchers not only found a virus in the alga but discovered the largest one ever recorded with a latent infection cycle, meaning it goes dormant in the host before being reactivated to cause disease.

Bioinformaticians have established that the genes in bacterial genomes are arranged in a meaningful order. They describe that the genes are arranged by function: If they become increasingly important at faster growth, they are located near the origin of DNA replication. Accordingly, their position influences how their activity changes with the growth rate.